Omicron appears to be more entrenched in the Welsh capital than any other part of Wales.
In just a matter of weeks it has driven the infection rate in the area sky high prompting Mark Drakeford to impose Covid restrictions on several parts of society including hospitality, events, and large scale mixing in homes.
The situation is moving so fast it is worth taking a look at what precisely is happening with Covid in Cardiff.
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Where are the areas with the highest cases in Cardiff?
At the moment the areas with the highest Covid rate in the city (per 100,000 of population) are:
- Cathays North 2,576.90
- Cathays South & Bute Park 2,321.40
- Plasnewydd 1,658.60
- Roath 1,578.30
- Gabalfa 1,526.30
These parts of the city have something in common (as well as bordering each other). Namely they the parts of the city which have a younger and heavily student population.
This would make sense as omicron is mixing more in younger people than other parts of the population. What is interesting is that, though these areas had very high cases at the start of the pandemic, in the autumn and winter had very low case rates compared to other parts of the city. This could potentially be because there was large scale immunity in the population previously through infection and recent vaccination but now the more easily spread omicron variant is able to dodge many people's immune response.
What about the rest of the city?
St Mellons West has easily the lowest rates of Covid at 370 per 100,000 of population with Splott, Ely East and Llandaf North also seeing lower rates.
Across the whole city there are 18 areas with an infection rate above 1,000. Just a matter of weeks ago there were only three.
To fully appreciate how quickly the situation has deteriorated in Cardiff we can look at the number of new cases per day. The graph below shows the amount of cases found in the city up to December 21.
In the last few days Cardiff has seen more than 800 new cases in a single 24-hour period. Before the omicron wave the record was just over 500. You can see the full data for every area of Cardiff at the bottom of this article.
What is the situation in hospitals?
At present the Covid situation is quite stable in Cardiff and Vale Health Board area.
The number of patients in hospital (either acute or general beds) was 130 on November 21 but has fallen steadily and stabilised at about 90.
It is worth bearing in mind that it typically takes three weeks for a spike in Covid cases to turn into hospitalisations and omicron only really got going in the Cardiff area few weeks ago so any rise in hospital admittance is unlikely to show up yet.
There are still question marks over how large this increase in serious illness is likely to be with some tentative signs that omicron is less severe than previous variants and increasing levels of vaccination within the community.
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